


Broken

by bananannabeth



Series: Angst War (vs. Suneater (Gryn)) [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: AU, Angst, Codependency, Everyone's OOC because of the Angst sorry, F/M, I cannot be trusted, I wanted to write something happy for Percy's birthday and instead I did this, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2018-12-16 20:39:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11836635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bananannabeth/pseuds/bananannabeth
Summary: Percy Jackson is twenty four when he dies on the side of the road, somewhere between Camp Half Blood and New York City.





	1. Broken

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [What If Percy Did Become a God?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5405126) by [TheSecretLifeofaFangirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSecretLifeofaFangirl/pseuds/TheSecretLifeofaFangirl). 



> Inspired by a lot of things [@blackjacktheboss](http://blackjacktheboss.tumblr.com) has written, and [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC-OinzRMyc). Happy birthday, Percy! And I’m sorry. (I may continue this, depending on response? I'm not sure at the moment.)

 

 

Annabeth Chase is twenty four when the world stops. 

 

“Fix this!” she screams to the heavens, hands clutching at her boyfriend’s limp shoulders, palms slipping on the blood that’s pouring from the open wound on the left side of his chest. If she looked, she’d probably be able to see his heart in there. 

 

But she doesn’t look down - doesn’t look at his broken body, or his vacant stare, or his pale lips. She just cradles his head in her lap and looks straight up, and she screams and screams until her throat is raw.

 

“Fix this! Fix this, you cowards, you useless, pathetic cowards,  _help him_! You owe him, you owe us, you have to fix him, you have to  _save him_!” She can taste the salt from her tears, can hear how ragged and desperate and crazed she sounds, but she doesn’t care. “Please, save him, I’ll do  _anything_ , please,  _please_ , just  _save him_  -”

 

She feels like ripping her own heart from her chest and offering it to the gods instead. Even if they didn’t take it, at least they’d match. At least she wouldn’t be the one left to mourn.

 

Someone puts a hand on her shoulder, says something that she can’t hear over her own screaming, and starts to pull her back. She violently wrenches out of their grasp, curls herself over Percy and holds him tight, her entire body shaking with the force of her grief.

 

“No! I’m not leaving him, I’m not going anywhere, you can’t make me!” 

 

She can’t leave him here, lying unprotected on the side of the road, surrounded by the dust of their enemies. He needs her, they need to stay together.

 

Strong arms curl around her waist and lift her off the ground, but she refuses to let Percy go. She clutches at his bloodied shirt, fingers grasping the edge of the tear above his heart and wrenching the flimsy material up with her as she’s hoisted into the air. 

 

“No, put me down, let me go, let me  _go_!” She kicks and writhes and fights, hurls insults and curses into the air, pleads and prays and begs, “Don’t take him away from me,  _please_ , please,  _don’t take him away from me_.”

 

“It’s not safe,” the person says - Jason, maybe, she can’t tell, she doesn’t care - and they don’t let her go. They don’t understand.

 

Someone in the distance is crying, loud, gut wrenching sobs. Someone else is saying,  _no, no, no,_ over and over and over, and at that moment Annabeth hates them all.

 

“No, let me go!” The shirt slips from her fingers and she starts punching the arms of her captor. She knows the hits are landing but she can’t feel them at all. She can’t feel anything except for raw panic. “We can’t leave him here, I’m not leaving him, we’re staying together!”

 

The sky cracks open. There’s a flash of light, bright enough to obscure Percy from Annabeth’s view, and for a moment she worries that they’ve taken him. But then the light fades, and Hestia is standing before them.

 

“You have to decide quickly,” she says.

 

Annabeth stops punching. “Decide what?”

 

“If we save him -”

 

The person holding her lets her go. Annabeth falls to the ground, crumples to her knees. Her voice is so much quieter now. “You can save him?”

 

Hestia glances up as lightning sparks across the sky. “Yes, but -”

 

“Do it.” 

 

“Annabeth -”

 

“I don’t care what the consequences are, I’ll do anything. Just save him.” She swallows, glances at the storm clouds gathering in the distance. “Please.”

 

There’s a clap of thunder. It starts to rain. Hestia looks concerned.

 

Annabeth’s patience evaporates. “Do it!”

 

Hestia turns around and steps over to Percy. He’s lying on his back, staring straight up at the sky, Riptide lying beside his limp right hand. Both are covered in blood. The goddess bows over him, murmurs something, wipes her hand over his heart and places something on his tongue. She glances back at Annabeth, and she’s obviously not happy about what she’s doing, but Annabeth doesn’t care. If it can bring Percy back it has to be done. There’s no other way.

 

Hestia turns back to Percy and gently closes his mouth and his eyes. She speaks some more, and then she slowly stands. 

 

It’s raining harder now, enough to soak through Annabeth’s shirt in seconds. That’s a good thing, though. Percy can heal better in the rain. Annabeth can’t tear her eyes off him, waiting for a sign that this has worked, until Hestia blocks her view.

 

“Annabeth,” she says softly, crouching down in front of her. “He’s not going to be the same.”

 

“But he’s going to be okay?” she asks, craning her neck to look around the goddess’s shoulder. 

 

Hestia sighs. “He’ll be okay.”

 

Annabeth sobs. “Thank you.”

 

Hestia stands. “Don’t thank me yet.” And then she’s gone.

 

Percy’s fingers twitch. 

 

Annabeth’s body suddenly regains feeling. She crawls forward, scrabbling over the rocks and dirt on her hands and knees until she’s at his side, until she can grab his hand. She stretches her fingers across his palm, searches for the pulse point in his wrist, and when she feels it beat she cries out.

 

“Percy,” she says, glancing from his still-closed eyes to his tattered shirt to the blood dripping out the side of their palms, pressed so tightly together she can feel her cuts and scrapes stinging from the contact. “Percy, you’ve gotta wake up. Come on, Seaweed Brain, open your eyes. We’ve gotta get to your mom’s, she’s got - you know she’s got this big dinner planned for your birthday. Grover’s going to meet us there, and Frank and Hazel, and your sister’s waiting to see you. You’ve gotta wake up, Percy, come on.”

 

His chest shudders as he inhales.

 

Annabeth sobs again. Someone behind her screams, unintelligible. 

 

“Wake up, Percy.”

 

His fingers twitch beneath hers. She holds her breath.

 

And then he grips her hand, holding it as if it’s a life line, like she’s the only thing tethering him to the rest of the world.

 

And he opens his eyes.

 

“Percy…” She can’t move. He blinks up at her, obviously confused, and then slowly lets go of her hand.

 

“What -” He goes to prop himself up on his elbows, winces and falls back down. “What happened?”

 

Annabeth leans over him, hands hovering above his shoulders. “You’re okay, you’re okay,” she repeats, because that’s the only thing that matters.

 

He turns his head to the sides, taking in the scene, and she sees the realisation dawn on his face. A tear slips from the corner of his eye and falls to the dirt. “Annabeth, what did you do?”

 

She shakes her head. “I had to, Percy, I had to -”

 

He brings a hand up to cup her cheek, comforting and familiar, and she leans into the touch, relishes the feel of his calloused fingers on her temple, his warm palm against her jaw, the support of having him there.

 

She smiles, and Percy starts to smile back.

 

But then he shifts his hand, and his eyes go wide. His hand falls away and his jaw drops in horror.

 

“What? What is it?” Annabeth raises a hand to wipe the blood from her cheek, figuring there’s more of it than he’d been expecting. 

 

Except it isn’t blood that stains her skin. The liquid is viscous and golden, unable to be washed away in the rain, and the two of them stare at it as dread pools in Annabeth’s stomach.

 

“Ichor,” she says quietly.

 

Percy grabs her hand, covers the golden stain with his palm, and forces her gaze back to his. His voice is hoarse but firm as he says, “The important thing is that we’re together.”

 

Annabeth nods. She made the right choice. She will not regret this decision. 

 

Percy Jackson is twenty four when his mortal life ends. 

 

 

 


	2. Permanent

 

 

Things have been different ever since she made the deal with the gods to bring him back. It’s like all of the darkness that he normally keeps hidden away has been brought to the surface. He’s quicker to anger, more reckless than ever, and he is insatiable.

 

No one can keep up with him in training anymore. It’s like the Curse of Achilles but without the drain in energy afterwards; Once he gets started, he’s unstoppable. No one stands a chance, and so people stop trying.

 

Annabeth goes up against him, even when everyone else has given up, dagger in her hand and smirk on her face as she goads him on. But as much as she doesn’t want to be afraid of him a part of her is, and he knows it. He holds back when he fights her, even lets her win sometimes, and it’s never quite enough.

 

His new hunger doesn’t stop with sparring. They’ve always been a physically affectionate couple, finding ways to express themselves through actions that words would never allow. 

 

So when Annabeth starts to feel him drifting away she tries to pull him back, curling her body over his and whispering, “I’m yours, I’m yours, I’m all yours,” as he moves inside her. He bows his head and kisses above her heart, and he sounds broken as he says, “I know, I know, I know.”

 

It’s still not enough.

 

The space between them grows.

 

“What do you need?” she says, practically begging, clasping their hands between them and squeezing tight. “I’ll do anything, Percy, just tell me what you need.”

 

He looks at her sadly, shakes his head. “I don’t know, Annabeth.”

 

Percy gets sadder, and Annabeth gets older, and it finally starts to sink in, exactly what she’s done.

 

They’re together, but they can never  _really_  be together again. 

 

They try, of course they try, of course neither of them admit it. They’re stubborn and stupid and so obsessed with keeping what they worked so hard to build that they’re not just going to give up on it now.

 

But when the gods call for Percy to go on a quest, he doesn’t say no.

 

“Maybe it’ll be good to get away for a bit,” he says, shrugging. 

 

Annabeth chews her bottom lip. “Is it safe though?”

 

He laughs, humourless. “Of course it’s safe. Nothing can hurt me now.”

 

She scowls, and silence settles between them. They’re twenty-eight, and they’re so tired.

 

Her voice is quiet when she asks, “Will you come back?”

 

He threads his fingers through hers, presses their palms together. She can feel his pulse beating in his wrist, and she thinks,  _I did that._

 

“Of course I’ll come back.” And that should be it, that should be enough, but she hears the bitterness creep into Percy’s voice as he says, “I’m your something permanent, remember?”

 

 


	3. Reunion

 

Percy leaves, and he doesn't come back.

 

Annabeth crumbles.

 

Her friends try to pull her back, try to remind her of everything else that she has, but it's not the same, they're not the same,  _she's_ not the same. She realises, now, that to bring Percy back she had to give a piece of herself to him. Something vital and irreplaceable has been taken from her, and that something is in him, and without him beside her she feels broken.

 

She felt broken with him there, too. But it was different. It was better. Better than this, this horrible, gaping emptiness inside her chest and behind her eyes and gnawing away at her mind.

 

She's thirty-six when she sets out to find him, tired of trying to bluff her way through a world that isn't meant for her. She slips away in the middle of the night, telling no one, because she can't be followed. She treks across the country, following stories of a mysterious man who's been seen at the sights of various car crashes and incidents of the destruction of public property and freak storms setting in at beaches.

 

She remembers that he'd been called away by the gods to track down a minor god who had gone rogue, a lingering threat left over from Kronos and Gaia's time. She wonders if it was really so difficult that it took him almost a decade to do the job.

 

The answer is no. 

 

Annabeth knows this for sure when she tracks him down to a lake in Oregon and they lay eyes on each other for the first time in eight years. A torrent of emotions rushes across his face, sea green eyes shimmering - surprise, relief, horror, anger, resignation, and then, finally, joy. She supposes she should be glad that that's the one he settles on, but her heart clenches that it wasn't the first or the only.

 

"Annabeth?" he breathes, disbelieving.

 

"Hi, Percy."

 

He steps towards her and she's torn, equal parts wanting to run away and wanting to run into his arms. She stays frozen where she is. Every part of her aches as he looks over her. 

 

"You look -"

 

Old, she knows. "It's been eight years," she cuts him off.

 

"- Beautiful," he finishes quietly.

 

She frowns. He hasn't aged a day, although as she looks at him she swears his hair tinges slightly with grey and some more lines appear around his eyes. Like he's trying to match her.

 

"You never came back," she says, ignoring his compliment, because if she stops to focus on it she'll completely lose conviction.

 

"I-" He starts, stops, runs a hand through his hair and looks at her sadly. "I was going to, I swear. But then... time feels different, now, and things kept happening and I -"

 

Rage bubbles in Annabeth's chest. "And you what, Percy? You forgot about us? You didn't want to deal with us lowly demigods anymore?"

 

Percy actually looks offended at that. "What? No, I -"

 

"Eight years!" she exclaims, marching forwards to shove him in the chest. She ignores the shock that runs up her arms at the contact. "You left me alone for  _eight years,_ you asshole!"

 

He pales. "I didn't - I don't -"

 

"What happened to _something permanent_ , huh? What happened to _together_?" she spits at him, pushing his shoulders after each question.

 

He doesn't even attempt to fight back, just stands there and lets her push him and punch him, staring down at her sadly. Eventually he reaches up to gently curl his hands around her wrists and hold her back. She lifts a foot to kick him in the shins and he winces but doesn't let go. 

 

"I'm sorry," he says quietly. "I thought I was doing the right thing?"

 

"How could you think that?" she yells, still struggling to get out of his grasp.

 

"Because you deserve a chance to live a normal life, Annabeth!" he yells back, composure finally breaking. "And you can't have that as long as I'm around!"

 

She stills, wrists going limp in his grasp. She stares at him, understanding settling over her. She starts to sob. "I don't want a normal life, Percy. I want  _you_."

 

Percy lets go of her wrists and moves his hands to her back, drawing into a hug. He holds her tight as she sobs, overwhelmed by seeing him again, by missing him for so long, by everything that they've done together and everything that he is. She still doesn't feel whole, but she feels better.

 

So when he leans down to kiss her, Annabeth doesn't shy away, looping her arms around his neck and pulling him down to her, holding him against her as she breathes him in and tastes him and feels herself come alive for the first time in so long.

 

Eight years, and they immediately end up exactly where they were before.

 

They spend three nights alone at the lake, reacquainting themselves with each other in every sense of the word, and Annabeth moans, "I'm yours, I'm yours, I'm all yours," and Percy kisses the swell of her breast and moans, "I know, I know, I know."

 

And when the sun rises on the fourth day and he's still there beside her, Annabeth knows that he's going to stay.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long, and sorry that it's... sorta sad.


	4. The First Goodbye

 

Percy Jackson is, technically, on some level, still twenty four when the world stops. 

 

In reality, on another level of technicality, he is forty-six, with appropriately gray hair and wrinkles and a loving partner with whom he's spent the last decade travelling around the country. Never mind that they've been on the run the entire time, living as fugitives from gods, demigods and mortals alike. They've been together, and that's all that matters.

 

Until now.

 

"What have you done?" Percy roars to the heavens, hands clutching at his girlfriend's limp shoulders, palms slipping on the blood that's pouring from the open wound on the left side of her head. If he looked, he'd probably be able to see her brain in there.

 

But he doesn't look down - doesn't look at her broken body, or her vacant stare, or her pale lips. He just cradles her head in his lap and looks straight up, and he screams and screams until his throat is raw.

 

"What have you done?! Face me, you cowards, you useless, pathetic cowards! For once in your miserable lives, own up to what you've done!" He can taste the salt from his tears, can hear how ragged and desperate and crazed he sounds, but he doesn't care. "I'll kill you! I'll kill you for this, I swear -"

 

There's no one there to cut him off, but his own panic does the trick. Words fail him as the awful reality starts to set in, as he realises just how lifeless Annabeth is in his arms. He sobs violently, curling over Annabeth and holding her tight, his entire body shaking with the force of his grief. He's crying hard enough to rattle every bone in his body, to bring the water up from wells underneath the ground and to begin to soak the Earth around them, to cause clouds to gather and swirl overhead as the wind picks up, as his sadness melds with anger.

 

They've taken Annabeth from him, and infinity stretches out beyond him in a way that is more unbearable than it's ever been before. He roars, incomprehensible, raw pain, raw grief, raw rage.

 

The sky cracks open. There’s a flash of light, bright enough to momentarily blind him, and for a moment he thinks that Hera might have finally showed up to lay claim to her actions. But then the light fades, and Hestia is standing before them.

 

“You can't, Percy,” she says.

 

Percy squints at her. “Can't what?”

 

“You can't bring her back -”

 

Slowly, carefully, Percy stands. He's so much taller than Hestia, now. He stares her down, voice level as he says, "Why not?"

 

Hestia glances up as lightning sparks across the sky. "Because she's already too far gone. She gave herself to you, last time, and there's nothing more that can be done."

 

"I don't care."

 

"Percy -"

 

"You brought me back, why can't you bring her back too?" His jaw is clenched, his eyes deliberately focused on the goddess in front of him instead of the woman lying at his feet. "Why. Not."

 

There's a clap of thunder. It starts to rain. Hestia looks concerned.

 

Percy's patience evaporates. "Why not!"

 

Hestia shakes her head sadly and steps towards Annabeth. She's lying on her back, staring straight up at the sky, her sword lying beside her limp right hand. Both are covered in blood. Percy doesn't step back as Hestia bows over her, murmurs something, and gently closes her eyes, placing the coins there for passage over the Styx.

 

It's raining harder now, fat drops that are just heavy enough to not be blown away completely by the howling wind of the tornado forming above them.

 

"Percy," Hestia says softly, standing to look him in the eye. "She's gone now, but she'll come back. You just have to wait.... I'm sorry, but -"

 

Percy looks down, shakes his head and laughs bitterly. "You're not sorry. None of you are sorry. None of you care. If you cared, you wouldn't have let this happen, you wouldn't have let this happen to either of us."

 

Hestia sighs. "I am, Percy. I truly am sorry." And then she's gone.

 

Percy's fingers twitch. He picks up Annabeth's sword and throws it, as hard and as far as he possibly can. It whistles through the air, gets caught in the strong winds and disappears into the clouds. Percy imagines it flying up to Olympus and stabbing Hera straight through the heart. 

 

He collapses to his knees, grabs Annabeth's hand and stretches his fingers across her palm, searching for the pulse point in her wrist that he knows is no longer beating. 

 

“Annabeth,” he says, glancing from her still-closed eyes to her bruised temple to the blood dripping out the side of their palms, pressed so tightly together he can almost imagine his skin stinging from the contact. “Annabeth, you’ve gotta wake up. Come on, Wise Girl, open your eyes. We’ve gotta keep moving, we've got - we can't let them break us like this, we can't let them win, not after - not after everything, everything we've been through. You’ve gotta wake up, Annabeth, come on.”

 

His chest shudders as he inhales.

 

Annabeth remains utterly still.

 

“Wake up, Annabeth.”

 

His heart breaks.

 

The tornado reaches full force, winds lashing violently around them as they sit at the eye of the storm, and suddenly Percy is sixteen years old again, full of untapped potential and rage and anger over how unfair everything is, because he never asked for this, he didn't want any of this, he never wanted -

 

He didn't want to be a god.

 

He crushes Annabeth's lifeless body to his chest and cries and cries, sheltered in the middle of a storm of his own making, and wishes that she had let him die, all those years ago. It's a selfish wish, and one that can't come true, but he wishes it none the less, because death would be better than this. 

 

Death would be better than being the one left behind. 

 

But there is no death for him. Just endless time, immortality, long and lonely.

 

Annabeth made the wrong choice, and they both lived to regret her decision. 

 

But Percy had to live longer.

 

 

 


End file.
